ACC ~ Acts 18 v23 - 28

OVERVIEW:

Here begins the third missionary journey, which will end at Acts 20:38 and covers the years 54 to 58. Luke introduces Apollos, known from 1 Corinthians, but there are some discrepancies between Luke’s account and what can be gleaned from Paul’s letter. Paul’s Apollos seems to have come to Ephesus after he arrived in Corinth after Paul, whereas Luke never has them meet and describes Apollos as beginning in Ephesus and continuing on to Achaia. Luke does not answer the question as to how one so eloquent about Jesus as Messiah did not know about baptism after twenty years of the Christian movement. The Fathers find Apollos mysterious for reasons different from those of the modern commentators. The spirit in Acts 18:25, understood today as referring to Apollos’s spirit, is the Holy Spirit in the Fathers, which presented them with a dilemma: how did Apollos have the Holy Spirit when he had not received baptism in Christ? For Ammonius, Apollos’s knowledge of the Scriptures enabled him to show his opponents how Jesus was the prophesied Messiah, but for Didymus, it is his knowledge of the Scriptures that makes him speak in the Spirit. Chrysostom sees Apollos as similar to Cornelius, a man whose eagerness and goodness has drawn the Holy Spirit to him and thus emboldened him in his limited knowledge. Chrysostom and Didymus explain the Spirit’s role as concomitant with his limited knowledge and not as fulfilling it. Only Ammonius sees Apollos’s possession of the Spirit as something that imparts knowledge to him, and yet he does not realize that this raises the question of why Apollos was not directly given full knowledge about Jesus by the Spirit. Chrysostom, however, sees divine providence in Priscilla and Aquila, who have been left there to supplement what Apollos is lacking and thus to prepare him for his work in Corinth. This schooling is odd in that here is a man, well-educated in the Scriptures, a scholar of sorts, sitting not only at the feet of tentmakers but of a woman (AMMONIUS). In the Greco-Roman world women, if educated at all, would only very rarely receive the same level of education that men of their families did, and so to be taught by a woman could constitute a disgrace in general, but even more so for one known for his learning.

18:24 | An Eloquent Man

APOLLOS’S SKILLS. AMMONIUS: He was learned in the Scriptures, able to dispute with those who questioned him and able to demonstrate that the recent events were in agreement with the Old Testament. CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 18.24.

18:25 | He Taught Accurately About Jesus

THE NATURE OF APOLLOS’S IGNORANCE. DIDYMUS THE BLIND: Speaking somewhat accurately the things concerning Jesus is not different from laying out somewhat accurately the things concerning the way, the teaching of Christ, for it is possible that someone, having a generally precise knowledge about the things of Christ, needs a most nuanced explanation of them. Apollos, being a Jew, had the opportunity to know the Old Testament that gives witness concerning Jesus. Therefore, being learned, he was speaking in the Spirit, and he was teaching in the synagogues what he knew about Jesus. Being students of the apostle Paul, Priscilla and Aquila take him, being full of eagerness, aside in order to pass on to him the entire way of the gospel. It is probable that Apollos knew that Jesus had lived among humankind and had commanded these things of the way, but it is unlikely that he knew why he had come among us. CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 18.28.

18:26 | Priscilla and Aquila Heard Him

JUST AS CORNELIUS. CHRYSOSTOM: The boldness of the man was great: he spoke precisely about Jesus, but he was in need of precision, of other further teaching. And still, in this way, even though [Apollos] did not know all, he had, because of his eagerness, drawn to himself the Holy Spirit, just as those at the house of Cornelius. CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 18.26-27.

BOILING WITH THE SPIRIT. AMMONIUS: How did this man, who had only been baptized according to John’s baptism, have the Holy Spirit, but his followers did not? To this it must be said that for this reason was he boiling with the Spirit: being enlightened by the grace of God, he knew precisely and taught from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ. And this very knowledge did not allow him to keep quiet, but he himself, doing the work of an evangelist, taught, as did his disciples, about Jesus. CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 18.25.

NO SHAME TO BE TAUGHT BY A WOMAN. AMMONIUS: It must be noted that we must believe that women passed on the faith: see how completely desirous of salvation Apollos was, for even though he was an educated man and was well versed in the Scripture’s secrets, he did not consider it worthless to learn the fullness of the faith from a woman. He did not become conceited as if he were receiving a rebuke from a woman that “you should learn more fully the things concerning God the Word’s ordaining.” Therefore [Priscilla] explained to him in her teaching the things of faith, and Apollos listened and received them, for while he knew that Jesus was the Christ and the servant of God and concluded so from the Scriptures, his knowledge was imperfect, since he did not know what had been spoken and prophesied to the apostles through the Holy Spirit. And so the circle of Aquila, being followers of Paul, laid out more clearly to him the way of God, such as worship in the Spirit and the circumcision not by hands and whatever else had been spoken for the perfection of the church. CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 18.25.

THE COUPLE LEFT AT EPHESUS FOR APOLLOS’S SAKE. CHRYSOSTOM: It was not for nothing that [Paul] left them at Ephesus. For Apollos’s sake the Spirit planned this, so that he might advance upon Corinth with greater force. HOMILIES ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 40.